U2 shoots new video in Vancouver
U2 announced today that they are shooting their latest video at GM Place in Vancouver.
In a last-minute email from U2.com, the band invited fans to come down to the arena on Wednesday (Apr. 27) to take part in the live video for their upcoming single, "City of Blinding Lights."
The first 4,000 fans (as of 3 p.m. Pacific Time) were to be issued a ticket to a reserved seat surrounding the stage.
The video is being helmed by French directors Alex and Martin, the pair behind U2's Grammy-winning video "Vertigo." Their resume also includes The White Stripes, Kylie Minogue, Air, Jane's Addiction and Noir Desir.
U2 play two sold-out shows at GM Place tomorrow and Friday.
The new Bond is the old Bond, says co-star
LONDON - The new James Bond is the old James Bond, says an actress who has appeared in the last four films about the British spy.
According to Dame Judi Dench, Pierce Brosnan will reprise the role in the upcoming remake of Casino Royale, which is expected to be released next year.
"Despite the fact that everyone on the face of the Earth has been tested as his possible replacement, he'll be doing it again and it will be announced come summer," Dench told Britain's Daily Mirror newspaper.
Depending on which reports you believe, Brosnan was either dropped by the producers of the long-running film franchise or decided to quit the role while he was on top.
He last appeared as Agent 007 in 2002's Die Another Day. Since then, a long list of actors have been rumoured to be contenders for the job, from Daniel Craig to Dougray Scott to Clive Owen to Colin Salmon to Jude Law.
The latest speculation, however, had Brosnan having his licence to kill renewed. That said, the producers of the films have so far refused to back up Dench's comments.
"No cast members, locations or release dates can be confirmed," a spokesperson said.
Dench has played M, Bond's boss, since Brosnan took over the role. Her remarks came while talking to a gossip columnist in New York.
The new Casino Royale will be the 21st Bond film. When a new actor takes over the lead role in the series, it's often considered a risky move.
When George Lazenby replaced Sean Connery, for example, the result was 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service, which is considered a low point in Bond's screen history. Timothy Dalton, who replaced Roger Moore, lasted only two movies in the role.
Bond first appeared in the 1953 Ian Fleming novel Casino Royale, which was made into a spoof by a rival producer in 1967.
A good season, with reason
The great news is that the soon-to-conclude 2004-05 TV season truly does count as a "good thing," unlike most of its recent predecessors. After years of dedicating all their creative energy to cloning their own hits or stealing someone else's, the networks finally came up with a few new, popular ideas. Desperate Housewives alone might be enough to make the season a success — and that's not even counting the equally admirable Lost and House.
Nor was all the good news confined to new shows. Alias, 24 and Gilmore Girls bounced back from weak seasons to reclaim spots among TV's elite, while NYPD Blue showed how a classic can go out with class.
Obviously, no TV season is perfect, certainly not one that featured such reality abominations as Who's Your Daddy and The Will. The most we can ask is that the good outweigh the bad. This season, it did.
So with May on the way and the season on the way out, we pause to look at the best and worst the TV year had to offer — our picks for the High Five and the Low Five of '05.
The good
5. The revival of scripted TV
Desperate Housewives and Lost didn't just revive ABC's fortunes, they also reminded viewers and networks alike of the pleasures and profits to be found in scripted television. Certainly, after years in which it seemed the only thing people wanted to talk about was who was kissing Joe Millionaire in the woods or kissing up to Donald Trump in the boardroom, it has been a joy to see the conversation turn to the sexual antics on Wisteria Lane and the hidden secrets of that mysterious island.
Like a rising tide, the success of these two breakout hits seemed to spark interest in other scripted hours. Certainly, there's no happier surprise this season than the success of House, a whip-smart drama many people (well, OK: me) feared was too adult to fit into Fox's kid-friendly lineup. As for those kids, a small but savvy group of them discovered UPN's Veronica Mars — a cult hit now, but a show that could someday attract a wider audience.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg in a broadcast season that boasts such dramatic worthies as 24, Alias, Gilmore Girls, Without a Trace, CSI, CSI: Miami, Grey's Anatomy, Eyes and Jack & Bobby. Each offers a good reason to set aside reality and bask in the age-old glow of strongly etched characters and well-told stories.
4. Basic-cable dramas
In general, if you're looking for original dramas, you still need to look to the broadcast networks, Showtime or HBO. But over the past few years, a few basic-cable networks have carved out their own niche, producing shows that blend the unregulated creative freedom of premium cable with the popular appeal of broadcast hits.
The upshot this season were two of TV's best new series, FX's Rescue Me and Sci Fi's Battlestar Galactica (the best space adventure since Sci Fi's own Farscape).
Granted, these series bright spots are few and far between in a cable landscape still dominated by wrestling and reruns. Still, any business that can give us Rescue Me, Battlestar and FX's Nip/Tuck is a business worth encouraging.
3. Uninterrupted runs
How do you stretch 20-some episodes over a 36-week season? Sometimes, you don't.
The normal broadcast pattern is to premiere series in September and end them in May, which means networks either have to repeat episodes or replace the shows entirely for a spell. But now and then they offer us a third choice: uninterrupted, full-length runs.
The greatest beneficiaries of the twist were ABC's Alias and Fox's 24. Heavily serialized and amusingly complex, these series have stories that are best told straight through. Interruptions cause viewers to lose interest and patience and give them too much time to ponder the logic of the plot.
Economic realities mean such runs will always be the exception, not the rule. But for Alias and 24, that exception has paid creative and ratings dividends — and that's a good reason to break a rule.
2. Reality in retreat
Failure could be the best thing that ever happened to reality-based TV.
Last year, after all, it looked as if we all might drown in the reality tide. But that was before this season's rash of failures, a catalog of fast flops that included The Benefactor, Branson's Quest for the Best, The Next Great Champ, Wickedly Perfect and Who's Your Daddy - one of the most loathsome ideas in the genre's short, sorry history.
With any luck, this purge has taught the networks that the only way to preserve the genre for the long run is to cut back in the short run. The best shows will and should survive: TV would be a much more boring place without American Idol, Survivor, The Amazing Race and America's Next Top Model. But there's a limit to how many times you can recycle the exact same idea, a limit surpassed by The Starlet, BMOC, and The Road to Stardom with Missy Elliott.
The worst reality ideas haven't disappeared, unfortunately. They've simply migrated down to the basic-cable nether regions occupied by A&E and E! Though come to think of it, that is sort of like disappearing.
1. Freshened faces
Yes, TV creates new stars. But it also can give new life to old stars, and that can be an even greater gift.
The most obvious example is Desperate Housewives, which took four fabulous women — Teri Hatcher, Felicity Huffman, Marcia Cross and Eva Longoria — and turned them into cover girls. Or consider Lost, which turned teen-favorite Matthew Fox into an adult leading man; or Numb3rs, which gave sitcom-killer David Krumholtz his first appealing role; or Eyes, which has provided a showcase for previously underappreciated Tim Daly.
Still, when it comes to well-earned stardom, the season's prize goes to House's brilliant star, Hugh Laurie. Even those of us who adored Laurie's work in such British comic wonders as Jeeves and Wooster and the Black Adder series never knew he had House in him. Thank goodness the producers did.
The bad
5. The sitcom drought
Oh, Joey, what have you done?
Granted, the pilot for NBC's Friends spinoff Joey was no great breakthrough. But it was funny and self-assured and competent — something the show hasn't achieved since. And as Joey goes, so has the genre this season, stumbling from one horrid mess to the next. You know a genre is in trouble when the best current example of the form, Fox's Arrested Development, has a surer shot at an Emmy than at renewal.
That doesn't mean the sitcom is dead: There's no reason to think that the millions of people who made Friends the top-rated show on TV just a few years ago have suddenly deserted the genre en masse. If they're not watching sitcoms, it's because so few of them are worth watching.
How can the form be fixed? For a start, the networks might consider the success of Desperate Housewives, an hour-long comedy built around women. You remember women, don't you? They're the people who used to star in such shows as I Love Lucy, Designing Women and Roseanne, before the networks decided to consign most of them to playing smart, second-banana wives with dumb, unattractive husbands. Turns out women found that less than amusing.
Go figure.
4. Shows that will not die
Far too many shows these days are forgotten but not gone.
The problem is that the networks have grown so enamored of long-running hits and so afraid of development failures that they want to eke every possible season out of every TV success. Surely fear is the only reason NBC is bringing back Will & Grace, as nothing in the show this season could lead anyone to believe the writers have anything new to say or anyplace new to take these characters.
The sad truth is that most shows today outlive their welcome — tying up time, talent and money that would be better spent elsewhere. Most stories can't be stretched over a decade, and most series can't survive time-induced cast changes — a trick that works far better for a plot-driven show such as Law & Order than a character-driven show such as West Wing.
There's an art to knowing when the time has come to get off the stage. Unfortunately, at NBC these days it's a lost art.
3. Kiddie reality
It takes an electronic village to raze a child.
Once content to simply make bratty kids secondary targets in shows like The Osbournes, TV has now elevated them to stardom — the worst examples being those bottom-dwelling twins, Supernanny and Nanny 911. Never mind the drivel about "fixing" these families; these shows exist to mine entertainment out of out-of-control children. Which means parents who have failed to raise their children properly have now failed to protect those same children from public ridicule. And we all join in.
Though it pains me to say so, the same complaint goes for MTV's addictive teenage bratfest My Super Sweet 16, about overprivileged, undermannered kids bullying their submissive parents into throwing over-the-top birthday parties. The show makes a fairly compelling argument against inherited wealth; still, rich children are children. I don't know when we adults decided mocking children for fun and profit was suitable entertainment, but it's time we grew out of it.
2. TV franchisation
In September, we wondered how many Law & Orders and CSIs were too many. Now we know: for L&O, four; for CSI, three.
As it turns out, it takes more than a name to make a show. You also have to come up with a few compelling characters and some workable distinction that separates the copy from the original. CSI: NY failed the first task; L&O: Trial by Jury the second.
And while we're complaining about franchise creep, it would be nice if CBS would stop trying to turn The Amazing Race into Survivor on the Go. The nasty tricks and backbiting maneuvers that work on Survivor should stay on Survivor — and the people who play on Survivor, or any other reality show, should stay off TV afterward. You people aren't franchises. You get one outlet, and then get out.
1. Time games
All right, networks, repeat after me: Shows start and end on the hour or half-hour.
That means, ABC, that Desperate Housewives should end at 10, not 10:02; and Alias should start at 9, not 9:01. As for NBC's long-established habit of starting ER at 9:59 — stop it. You networks keep playing these games with viewers, and someone's going to get hurt. And trust me, it's going to be you.
Disney Wooing Pixar Again
The Walt Disney Co. "definitely" wants to renew its relationship with Pixar Animation Studios, Disney Studios chief Dick Cook has told the London Times. "This has been probably the most successful relationship in the history of Hollywood," Cook told the newspaper. "It's definitely our desire to further the relationship with Pixar for years to come, and develop it even more, and we're hopeful they feel the same way." It has been more than a year since Pixar Chairman Steve Jobs angrily broke off contract-renewal talks with CEO Michael Eisner. Although he has reportedly met with the heads of other studios, he reportedly has been taking a wait-and-see approach to determine whether the company's incoming CEO, Robert Iger, will be less intractable to his terms.
Tom Cruise, Actress Katie Holmes Dating
LOS ANGELES - Tom Cruise has a new girlfriend — actress Katie Holmes. Cruise, 42, and Holmes, 26, have been dating a few weeks, Cruise's publicist and sister, Lee Anne DeVette, said Wednesday.
The pair were photographed this week together in Rome, where Cruise on Friday will receive a lifetime achievement award at the Italian equivalent of the Academy Awards, the David di Donatello Awards.
Holmes' public relations firm — Baker Winokur Ryder — confirmed the two were dating.
Both actors have had high-profile relationships.
Cruise's first two marriages, to actresses Mimi Rogers and Nicole Kidman, ended in divorce. He was dating actress Penelope Cruz until the pair split last year.
Holmes and actor Chris Klein recently called off their engagement after dating five years.
Cruise in his nearly 25-year career has starred in such films as "Rain Man," "Jerry Maguire" and the upcoming Steven Spielberg remake of "War of the Worlds."
Holmes is best known for starring in the TV show "Dawson's Creek," and the movies "Wonder Boys" and "Pieces of April." She will co-star with Christian Bale in this summer's "Batman Begins."
Groening Ponders Future of 'The Simpsons'
LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) It's a cliche for reporters to ask the creator of a long-running TV show about his favorite episodes, and the cliched response is for the creator to say that he loves them all and can't possibly single out one or two.
Yet upon meeting "The Simpsons" creator Matt Groening Monday (April 26) at a party celebrating the show's 350th episode -- which airs Sunday, May 1 -- the temptation to ask the favorites question was too hard to resist. Happily, he didn't give the usual non-answer, rattling off a list of his top secondary characters -- Apu, the Squeaky-Voiced Teen, Ralph Wiggum and Milhouse's dad, Kirk, among them -- and episodes he loves.
"I don't have a single favorite. There's a bunch I really like," Groening says. "I love 'Bart Sells His Soul,' the old episode [from October 1995] where he sold his soul to Milhouse for five bucks. I love the one where we had Frank Grimes ['Homer's Enemy,' from May 1997]. And I like an episode we have coming up where Bart converts to Catholicism."
That episode, originally scheduled for earlier this month, was pulled following the death of Pope John Paul II and is now set to air Sunday, May 15. Groening says the decision was one the network made: "We think it's offensive whenever you run it."
It's remarkable enough that "The Simpsons" has even made it to 350 episodes, more than any other scripted show currently on TV. That it can still create a buzz after that long, despite the now-familiar chorus that the show isn't what it once was, is pretty much unheard of in this era.
"No matter how hard people try to run it into the ground by putting it on too many times a day, putting it on multiple DVDs and oversaturating the marketplace and all the rest, we still keep going," Groening says. "In fact, I have to say I'm very proud of this season and the coming season."
Groening thinks the show has lasted so long because "with animation, there are so many possibilities to surprise the audience. That's really what we try to do. We try to keep surprising the audience and keep surprising ourselves."
Groening was quoted in The New York Times Sunday as saying "the show has almost reached its halfway point." Monday, he said he "was not serious at all" about whether "The Simpsons" can last another 350 episodes, but he quickly added, "I'll do them if we can.
"That's a long time, but if we, you know -- unless we all get killed," he says with a shrug. "I think five of the main people could get killed and the show could still go on. But any more than five -- that's why we all ride in separate airplanes."
LOW-KEY BRUCE
Bruce Springsteen kicking off his new acoustic tour Monday night at the Fox Theater in downtown Detroit, playing 27 tunes, including 10 songs off his new solo album, Devils & Dust, in an intimate setting.
Gyllenhaal 9/11 Comments Spark Outcry
NEW YORK - Maggie Gyllenhaal has waded into sensitive political waters by raising questions about Sept. 11 and American foreign policy. The 27-year-old actress, who stars in a new film about the 2001 terror attacks on the World Trade Center, said in an interview last week that the United States "is responsible in some way" for the attacks.
A fan Web site devoted to Gyllenhaal was overwhelmed with criticism, forcing the site's editor to remove the ability to post messages "because it's gotten too outta hand."
In a statement issued Monday by her publicist, Gyllenhaal said Sept. 11 was "an occasion to be brave enough to ask some serious questions about America's role in the world. Because it is always useful as individuals or nations to ask how we may have knowingly or unknowingly contributed to this conflict.
"Not to have the courage to ask these questions of ourselves is to betray the victims of 9/11."
She also expressed her grief for "everyone who suffered and everyone who died in the catastrophe."
Gyllenhall stars in "The Great New Wonderful," which features stories about people living in New York in the aftermath of the terror attacks. The movie is being shown at the Tribeca Film Festival, which was founded by Robert De Niro to help revitalize downtown Manhattan after Sept. 11.
Her screen credits also include "Secretary," "Mona Lisa Smile" and "Donnie Darko." She is the older sister of actor Jake Gyllenhaal. She lives in Manhattan.